Sincerely Yours
by Vixen2004
Summary: When you take two highly independent individuals and mesh them together under chance and dire circumstance, you receive the most catastrophic chain of events imaginable ... next only to the infamous apocalypse. Kurtis. Lara. And Cupid. Like, literally.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter One_

So I decided from then on out that I absolutely hated butterflies.

And can you honestly blame me? After being impaled by a half deranged mutant bug from hell any sane person is liable to take up an abhorrence to those twitchy flying things. Me being no exception. Hell, no. Then again, I probably am _the_ exception, seeing as though people don't normally get killed by butterflies on a day to day basis. At least not where I'm from anyway.

I guess that's where it all starts. Me turning around in all of my egotistical male pride in the light of my presumed triumph and psycho-turned Boaz ramming her blade arm into me at full speed from behind. It hurt. Oh, how it hurt. I could practically hear the wretched specimen ripping my organs out one by one, them sloshing around in the visceral fluid as they exchanged pleasantries on their way by. Why hello Stomach, how are you doing? Very well Pancreas, how's it going down there? Yeah, I'm sure they were saying stuff like that.

It was the loss of blood making me hallucinate. I swear. My organs don't usually make audible noises.

I vaguely remember staggering, the world going fuzzy and edges coming in and out of focus like I had consumed too much alcohol again (not something I'm terribly unfamiliar with but doesn't mean I welcome the side effect with open arms either.) I think my chakram left me to finish the duties I could not properly accomplish, though I'm not entirely sure. I was rather preoccupied with, ya know, staying alive and stuff. I then recall my face becoming personally acquainted with the cold, metal floor as I bashed my nose into the aluminum at speeds threatening those who had finished first in the Daytona 500. It was a lovely experience I'd rather not talk about; the cracking noise of my snapping nasal bone and the harmonious thunking sound of my forehead splattering against the tiling. I don't have much else to cough up as far as passing out goes, all I can offer is the cliché everything went black and I woke up with one hell of a headache hours later.

o-o-o-o-o

I was never particularly fond of blood, especially my own. And there it was, splattered out in front of me like modern art, all red and blotchy just dying to seep back through my wounds and into my warm, pleasant body. I don't really blame it, it was ridiculously frigid in Prague, almost as frigid as this one woman I met while commiserating on a less than legal mission in the depths of Alaska. I mean, talk about cold, this girl personified a flesh and blood human blizzard. But I should know better than to hit on ladies sporting ten hand grenades and a personal blow torch whilst trying to hunt a demon demolishing all existence as that particular town knew it. Then again, I was never known for my astuteness either.

And seeing my current predicament, even if I was known for my outrageously high IQ, it wouldn't have done me much good. Bleeding to death doesn't just magically stop because you are able to calculate quadratic equations in your head. Lux Veritatis training. That's what would get me through this. If only I could focus my damn eyes.

I risked a glance southward to assess the damage inflicted on my lower abdomen. It was a pretty neat wound, if wounds had the ability to be neat, and I assumed it would heal rather nicely if I could just manage to stay alive long enough for my flesh to close over. If I carked it now, my bleeding would indeed stop but then again so would my breathing, which would defeat the purpose entirely.

I attempted to stumble to my feet and toppled over almost immediately upon standing upright. Oh how my father would love to see me now. His perpetually whimpy son, unable to walk out a door all because of an insect on steroids. My untimely demise: a butterfly. A butterfly with mutant claws, no doubt, but still a butterfly. He was laughing from the heavens. Or hell. Which ever place he ended up.

Eventually, after about five more miserable attempts, I made it to my feet. If I had not recently been impaled, there would have been much rejoicing, which I usually never participate in lest I am drunk or significantly stoned. Neither which I recommend doing, by the way, unless you enjoy spontaneously making a fool out of yourself in front of prospective significant others. There may be a reason why I have been perpetually single.

Then again, the whole demon hunting aspect may have something to do with it, too.

Not that that off set Lara. Aw, bloody hell. Lara. She's off being all cheeky with Eckhardt and probably hurtling verbal cyanide at the guy before promptly delivering his ass to him on a silver platter. I may have only had two decent conversations with the girl, but I could already gather she was not one to exchange pleasantries with people threatening her life, or the demise of the entire known world for that matter. See, when people threaten my life, I just shoot them. Or slice them. Or stab them. Something that ultimately ends their existence. Participating in witty banter when my hands are itching to fight isn't something I'm accustomed to doing. Death. Blood. Violence. Take me to the action and leave me there and I will be fine.

Unless, of course, it happens to involve an over grown demonic butterfly. Then I'm just flat out screwed.

Let's not talk about these things.

With thoughts of the well endowed female still lingering in my head, I opted to leave my chakram precariously placed on the floor housing my blood. That thing had a homing device that latched on to me a million miles away. Lara was a smart girl. She'd figure it out. While I couldn't be there to greet her person and congratulate her on saving the world, I'm sure a puddle of my blood and a personal weapon would suffice.

We were never very good with small talk anyway.

While I was slightly peeved she was busy taking what should rightfully have been my ultimate act of vengeance against the man who so brutally killed my father (I may not have been particularly fond of the bastard but, hell, he was still my father) I knew she was in much better condition than I to be fighting right now and my best option would probably to have been checking into a hospital somewhere and getting myself patched up.

But let's not forget my infamously low IQ. I was never known for doing things that need to be done. Or saying things that need to be said. I point and I shoot. That's the basic story. All other things are up for grabs. Occasionally I'll win some more persuadable females over with my good looks and charm, but even that's an extreme rarity that tends to only work in underground bars and demon lairs where the typical female isn't freaked out by the personalized twin pistols you are holding and psychic super powers you posses.

Funny. I would think that would be a turn on.

Didn't phase Lara at all. Then again, I'm starting to think nothing phases that girl, living or dead, realistic or not. I could sprout another head out of my shoulder and all she would say is, "My, that's fascinating," then promptly proceed to blast the crap out of it until I was once again down to only one cranium. To this day I still can't tell if that's something that's turns me on or turns me off. Best not to ponder it.

So I limped away, in total hero like fashion, all battered and bruised by battle. My plan: check into a nondescript hotel room, have a smoke, drink some beer, and congratulate myself on not dying. Unless, of course, Lara failed. Then my plan would go something like: go into hiding, stock up on grenades, say my prayers, and prepare to get blown into oblivion by the long extinct Nephilim race as they dominated the planet. But as of the moment, all I cared about was getting myself a drink. If the world was gonna end it would wait until tomorrow. Right now just wasn't convenient for me.

And with that, I stumbled off through the gaping doors promising freedom and alcohol and cigarettes. I thought for a second about leaving Lara in such abrupt fashion, but it didn't bother me too much. Hardly at all, in fact. Demon hunters don't get attached. Demon hunters don't do relationships. Demon hunters don't have friends or significant others or families. We hunt, we kill, and we drink. Eat. Sleep. Breathe. Repeat until dead or killed by some unholy monster from the bowels of hell. This was the mentality I was brought up in. This was how I was raised. Leaving behind a temporary acquaintance? Typical. And I thought nothing of it. I considered myself more than benevolent simply by leaving my beloved chakram there. It would find its way back to me eventually. Lara would probably need some assurance I wasn't dead because, well, she's a girl and they, like, cry and stuff when people die.

I bid thee ado, Lara. It was fun while it lasted, but beer awaits me and you are more than capable of taking care of yourself. But for what it's worth, I always thought you were rather cute.

o-o-o-o-o

AN: I wanted to see how this story would fare out in the depths of fanfiction. I'm hoping I'm not the only female out there who fell for Kurtis the minute they saw them, though it has been brought to my knowledge that a 'Kurtis Estrogen Brigade' exists somewhere out in the realms of the world wide web. Reviews are significantly appreciated. Oh, and they also make me update faster. Just thought I'd throw that out there (hint hint.) So lemme know what you think. :)


	2. Chapter 2

It was a well known fact, not a mere opinion, that Zip could most undoubtedly cook.

He'd put Rachel Ray to shame if given the chance.

I didn't dare deny his wonders in the kitchen, so even though he was currently terrorizing Alister with a disemboweled pig's liver, I allowed such proceedings to take place in fear that if I did not we would have to resort to eating Winston's horribly microwaved Pasta Anytime concoctions he picked up at the local grocery store simply because they were on sale.

No one in the Croft manor is a big fan of Pasta Anytime.

"I say Zip, get that dastardly thing away from me!"

"Oh, but Alister my man, I can't help it. I think this pig had a crush on you. 'Marry me you sexy tweed clad nerd! I want your pale, albino body all to myself!'"

"Pigs do not hold the ability to communicate, Zip," Alister could be heard muttering off hand. "Now please be gone, and take your retched specimen with you."

"Retched specimen? Dude, this ain't no retched specimen. This be dinner tomorrow!"

I was rather upset I did not get to witness Alister's facial contort in response to Zip's previously declared menu choice for next evening. Oh, the things I miss while primping in front of my vanity mirror. I may be explorer extraordinaire, but that doesn't mean I can't indulge in the feminine wonders make up seemed to alluringly offer every once in a while. I do have estrogen coursing through my veins, after all. No amount of decaying temples or extinct angelic races could take that away from me.

"Lara, my dear," Winston petitioned from the threshold of my multi roomed quarters. "Dinner is about to be served."

"Thank you Winston."

I proceeded to make my way to the kitchen, slightly trepidacious as to discover the fate of the infamous pig liver, and whether or not it did really end up wooing Alister to some remote, romantic location.

The mental image of Alister courting the liver of a pig was almost too much to bear.

Then again, the mental image of Alister courting anybody was almost too much to bear.

"Yo, dinner is ready my peeps!"

While Zip was certainly not notorious for the finesse and pleasantries that seem to characterize my family to their grave, the aroma of his savory cooking was simply to die for and as long as he was able to make whatever jumbled concoction Winston so absent mindedly brought back from the local grocery store taste like a royal five course banquet, I decided he could utilize whatever greeting he desired upon the opening of dinner.

"Would it kill you to leave out that ever so habitual prefix of _yo_?" Winston queried from his typical seat at the opposite head of the table. "It is exceedingly agitating to say the least."

"Your repetitive floral adjectives is what's _exceedingly_ agitating," came the sardonic reply of Alister, even though his choice of speech was no better, who was characteristically buried nose deep into a book of some kind that he had so habitually carried with him to the dinner table. He went to blindly take his seat, of which he undoubtedly presumed to be waiting for him, but Zip's reaction time was delightfully faster and I tried desperately to stifle a smirk as I watched my book worm of a house mate topple to the floor in a flourishing ball of tweed and corduroy as the aforementioned chair was deliberately yanked out from underneath him.

"You should always look before you leap," I commented slyly in a superior fashion, much enjoying the spectacle my comrades unknowingly put on for me every evening.

"Hey!" Alister whined, his pale fists curling up into twin, pent up balls of anger. "I was _going_ to sit there!"

Zip looked down upon a now sprawled out Alister who was busy consuming half of the kitchen's floor space. "And you still can," he replied, a smirk rushing over his ebony features. "Nobody's stopping you."

"Winston!" my fellow archeological guru whined.

"Well I don't see what you expect me to do about it," the man retorted, poking the recently delivered parmesan chicken on his plate, almost as if he expected it to come alive like one of Zip's make shift contraptions. "I'm just a butler."

"Yes, but you're a _big_ butler," Alister continued emphatically, clamoring onto his newly arranged chair. "One with a machine gun and bullet proof vest in his cabinet."

"Are you suggesting I shoot Zip?" Winston inquired, arching an eyebrow in theory.

"Man, you couldn't shoot me if you wanted to. I'd just serpentine like a bat outta hell and leave you coughing up a lung in all my fine dust."

"Now boys," I began in my patented mock motherly voice of discipline. "While I must admit it is terribly amusing to bare witness to mutiny among my own family members, I suggest we eat dinner like a normal civilized family would and actually attempt to hold a conversation for once as opposed to a drawn out argument of who proposes we kill whom."

"I vote for silencing Alister," Zip shot in voluntarily.

"That's not a vote, that's a dictatorship," came the grumbled reply from the target in question.

"That was not a topic open to debate," I reminded them slowly, my voice dripping with the mock patience I tended to utilize frequently while in their presence.

"You can't use such big words in front of them, dear. They won't understand."

"Thank you for the insight, Winston."

"Ya know, just because you're always spouting out multi syllable words of high fluetent aristocracy doesn't mean you're necessarily smarter than us," Alister remarked in his usual tone of slight annoyance peppered with mock intelligence.

"Well I'm certainly smarter than _you_," Winston retorted. "Zip is another matter."

"I beseech thee," Zip smirked jokingly, giving Winston a half bow from his seat.

"Why does everyone insist on picking on me? Lara, make them stop!"

This time the uncharacteristic girly giggles I was so desperately trying to hide made themselves prominently known as I sat there with tears streaming down my cheeks. I vainly tried to mask my reactions with a tremulous covering of my hand clasped over my gaping mouth, but it was to no avail. The laughter came out regardless.

"Oh, you three make life worth living."

"You would never know that with all the death traps you take such joy in throwing yourself in," grumbled Zip, stabbing a piece of chicken relentlessly with his fork.

"I always come back alive," I responded curtly, dividing my chicken precisely up into nine even slices of meaty perfection.

"Yeah, but Alister here practically wets himself every time you journey through some lost, forgotten, decaying temple."

"I do _not_."

"I personally am not in favor of watching you journey through another remote location for quite some time," Winston chimed in, thoughtfully chewing on a piece of chicken. "Why can't you take up another assignment in a nice, low key area like Prague?"

I could feel the muscles in my face contort into a scowl as an invisible cloud of ominous tension descended upon the dinner table. I watched as each of my comrade's faces averted eye contact and found intense infatuation with the floor. All except for Alister.

"Say, isn't Prague where you met that—_oww_!"

I had gathered that Zip had chosen the impeccable timing of now to drive his heel into his comrade's foot.

"Oh? That Kurtis fellow?" I queried, utilizing mock nonchalance to mask my own trepidation hidden so unprofessionally in my voice. "He was positively primeval. If Boaz didn't get to him I'm almost certain those boxed up sticks of death tar his insisted on constantly smoking would have been the end of him anyhow. She unknowingly did him a favor, she saved him the trouble of chemotherapy."

The three men of the household stared at me with eyes glazed like doughnuts and mouths agape.

"That was a rather thought out soliloquy for someone you supposingly don't care about," Alister remarked keenly from his seat. I thought I heard the unmistakable clamor of Zip's foot coming down harshly on the tile floor, only to be met with nothing but air as Alister gloated triumphantly, "Ha! I moved!"

"You know, Lara dear, it is okay to admit that you miss him."

I scoffed at the words of comfort Winston so unsuccessfully tried to soften me with.

"Not now Winston, I don't have time for the fickle ponderings of melodramatic females. We have to concentrate on Avalon and Amanda. They take priority. Am I right or am I right?"

My head shot up to meet the eyes of my family, who knew much better than to argue with anything that came out of my mouth concerning that particular blond and the location of my mother.

"Well, yes dear I suppose they do—"

"I think he was a dick anyhow," Zip grumbled, again attacking his dinner with relentless vigor and zest. "If he really had half the balls he claimed he had he would have left you more than his stupid frisbee to let you know he was alright."

"I don't recall him ever mentioning his balls," Alister noted scientifically from his chair. I am almost certain Zip would have stomped on his foot again if he had not been the process of masticating.

"No use in pondering it," Winston said with a glare in the duo's obvious direction. "Lara checked out every hospital in the area twice. If he wanted to be found he would have. Now I propose we move on—"

"Twice?" Zip repeated. "I thought you told us you only checked once."

Winston cradled his wrinkly forehead in the palm of his outstretched hand. "Zip," he began. "Please, for the love of all things sacred, shut the bloody hell up."

There was a silence as I bit the interior of my cheeks to keep from laughing again at Winston's uncharacteristic choice of vocabulary.

"Ooh, you made Winston swear," Alister mocked, poking Zip in his well formed arm muscle.

"Well excuse me for taking an interest in Lara' personal life," Zip muttered.

"You three _are_ my personal life."

"Oh, my," Alister squeaked whilst in the middle of his peas. "Was I actually included in something?"

"Bittersweet default," Winston offered flatly.

There was a moment of respective silence as Alister sat contemplating the previous comment.

"So, like, aren't the Nephilim still lurking around?"

Winston glared daggers, uzies, and machine guns all in Zip's general direction.

"What?" he asked, feigning innocence. "I can't help it if I find the prospect of angels and humans getting jiggy with it highly infatuating."

"Only you would find such a horrid act such as that infatuating," Alister grumbled, beating his mash potatoes with his spoon. This was always the extent of his anger, or so I have gathered from all the opportunities I have bared witness too. He'd stab something on his dinner plate, usually followed by a snarky remark, and then resume his previous mundane activity, whatever it happened to be.

"Well, I for one find Avalon much more infatuating at the current moment," I chimed, delicately placing a piece of chicken on the tip of my tongue.

"So weren't there, like, three sleeping Nephilim?"

Zip was persistent to say the least. The very least.

"Zip, we've been over this already," Alister pointed out, swallowing a glob of vegetables.

"Yes," I confirmed briskly, my eyes performing an involuntary roll in their sockets. "There were three."

There was a characteristic pause as my comrade sat absorbing this straightforward fact.

"Didn't you only kill off two?"

The dead air that hung at the table after his previous muttered quip was suffocating.

"I got one," I answered after a moment of unsettling tension. "And the Lux got the other."

"And whatever happened to Christmas Carol?"

Alister glared at Zip, an action that was almost habit by now. "I believe you meant to say Karel."

"Yeah. That dude."

"He blew up the last I saw," I stated nonchalantly, stirring my peas around with nervous anxiety.

"Well did you ever find the body?"

"You idiot!" Alister shot out, clamoring his fisted spoon down on the table with great vigor. "You can't find the remains of a corpse after an explosion! They've already been blown to smithereens!"

"I believe Zip is trying to point out Karel may still be alive," Winston piped in dryly, stating the obvious in a matter that Zip was deriving so much joy from frolicking around.

"Well if he wanted a rematch he should have confronted me a long time ago," I dismissed. "Right now I have other matters that deem my attention necessary."

"You'll have to learn to multi-task if Karel comes back from the dead," Zip murmured half heartedly, for Winston looked as though he was ready to lunge for his jugular.

"I'll multi-task when it is necessary," I answered, rising from my seat with unfinished plate in hand. "And right now, I don't deem it necessary."

With that last conceit lingering in the sweltering air, I turned around and sauntered out of the room.

o-o-o-o-o

I have always adored water. The cleansing, soothing affect it has on my soul is priceless. Even massages are not so enjoyable. But the pool? Ah yes, my pool was a thing of wonder that I reveled in every spare moment I got. Even though, technically, I did not have a spare moment to speak of currently, I opted to travel down to the confines of the aquamarine cave regardless. After the little dinner side chat we just shared, it appeared as though I would be needing more than to simply irrigate myself to wash all matters away in the chlorine infested bliss.

I sat with my legs dangling in the cooling wetness for a long while, teetering on the decision of whether or not to take a head first plunge. A swim implied a shower, for my showers were never a thing of speed, and I desperately had research to indulge in tonight. Luckily, Winston appeared to help make my choice a lot easier.

"Lara, my dear, do you need anything?"

I looked over my shoulder, all previous hardness having seeped away from my features like rain does on the dry, cracked earth of Peru after its annual thunderstorm.

"No Winston, I believe I'm fine, but thank you."

There was a pause of uncertainty as my beloved butler sat wavering in the threshold uneasily. He momentarily personified a pendulum as he slowly shifted from side to side under the doorway, simultaneously racking his mind for something of comfort to present to me.

"Well then, may I offer my ear instead?"

A small smile crawled across my fuchsia lips as I toyed with the invitation in my mind. In a nonvocal response, I chose to deliberately pat the vacant concrete next to me.

Winston slowly made his way over and began to strip himself of his black patent leather shoes. He hiked his pants up with the torpor that only comes with age and then dismounted his wool socks before sticking his feet into the pool next to mine.

"I lost someone once," he began slowly, timidly.

I arched an eyebrow in response.

"Not to the permanence of death," he admitted, "but they never returned, none the less."

"Kurtis can't really be defined as a someone," I answered, presuming he already knew what was on my mind. "We only had two conversations, and both were centered around business."

"But they were conversations, no?"

"...yes," I surrendered. "I suppose."

"And I also presume the fact that he contained the possibility to kick you hind quarters in a fight was highly appealing."

Leave it to your butler to be able to read you so well.

"It was unpredictable," I replied, unwilling to admit anything else.

"Which is what you thrive off of."

"Only in temples."

"...and what of the occasional relationship?"

"There never was any relationship," I countered. "There never will be." I locked gaze with my loyal friend, my liquid brown eyes scanning his ice blue ones, searching for some inaudible sign that he had some grasp—no matter how desperately flimsy—on where I was going with this. "He's gone, Winston. He's not coming back."

There was the infamous reappearance of dead air lingering between us, almost as fatal to a conversation as that horridly putrid gas Eckhardt had one of his diabolical henchmen seep into the Louvre was to a normal human being.

"Now what was it Zip was so unintelligently blabbering about?" Winston pondered, after a dramatic moment of silence, feigning thoughtfulness. "...about not finding bodies...?"

"I found blood," was my retort. "That was enough."

Winston seemed to think of this for a moment, having no witty repertoire at hand.

"Perhaps you will find him in Avalon."

"With mother?" I laughed at the mere absurdity. "I didn't know you were a comedian, too, Winston."

"There is nothing comical about hope."

"But reality is another matter," I quipped hastily.

Ha. I got him there.

"Your father was never concerned with what others referred to as reality," Winston responded softly.

"I," I began, slowly, deliberately, "am not my father."

"Yes, but you are his daughter."

"Thank you for pointing out the obvious."

My words were harsh, but my tone was playful, and besides, Winston knew better than to take me seriously. It was one of the things I so desperately adored about him. Alister, on the other hand, would go into cardiac arrest and swiftly commence groveling at my feet begging for forgiveness lest his soul be tortured for all eternity.

Winston half chuckled and began to arise. "Well, my dearest Lara, I shall now leave you to your own devices. I think you've had about all the conversation you can take for one day. Will you be needing anything further?"

"No thank you," I replied, and as soon as Winston was out of my splash zone, I dove face first into the lapping waves of the pool with my clothes still on and my shoes still tied.

o-o-o-o-o

AN: Ode to those who appreciate the light known as Kurtis, and have no fear, ye of little faith, for his light shall return in the next chapter. POVS alternate every chapter, incase you have not figured that out yet (or for some strange reason thought Kurtis underwent a sex change, identity crisis, name mistake, and two serious implants and none would be the wiser.) I really hate that I had to point out the alternating POVS, but feared for life and limb lest my small base of Kurtis fangirl readers disembowel me for lack of his caustic narrative. It will be back in chapter three. I promise. I've already started working on it. Many thanks to your kind word, for such is the reason I have updated this quickly. I'm like...wow, this is actually doing really well for a TR fanfic. I didn't know how many reviews were typical per chapter in the TR fandom, and am very gracious that you have decided to grace me with nine reviews for my measly prologue. (Very benevolent of you, I am much obliged. Hence I shall deliver more Kurtis promptly.) Keep those wonderfully encouraging words coming, for they really do make a significant difference in the speed of updating (for me at least) and I treasure everything you say and hold it close to my rapidly beating heart. Thank you for your time and generosity. Hopefully the endeavor was returned in favor with a few smalls smirks thrown your way in signs of mirth if nothing else. I like to pretend I am funny. Let me keep my fantasy.


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